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Railway, 3 employees to be charged in Lac-Mégantic train derailment

Smoke and fire rises over train cars as firefighters inspect the area after a train carrying crude oil derailed and exploded in the town of Lac-Megantic, 100 kilometres east of Sherbrooke on Saturday, July 6, 2013.

Quebec Premier Pauline Marois, right, and Lac-Megantic Mayor Colette Roy-Laroche, centre, speak after a short press conference near the scene where a train carrying crude oil derailed and exploded in the town of Lac-Megantic, July 6, 2013.

Firefighters spray train cars at 7:29 p.m. Saturday as smoke and fire rises over them after a train carrying crude oil derailed and exploded in the town of Lac-Mégantic, 100 kilometres east of Sherbrooke early Saturday, July 6, 2013.

Lac-Mégantic resident Sylvain Guillette returns to his home near downtown Lac-Mégantic, Tuesday July 9, 2013, the fist time since being forced to leave because of a train explosion and fire on the weekend. Authorities today allowed some residents to return home.

Lac-Mégantic resident Marie France Bisson, right, to her home, with Vicky Ruel's help, near downtown Lac-Mégantic, Tuesday July 9, 2013, the fist time since being forced to leave because of a train explosion and fire on the weekend. Authorities today allowed some residents to return home.

Lac-Mégantic resident Sylvain Guillette returns to his home near downtown Lac-Mégantic, Tuesday July 9, 2013, the fist time since being forced to leave because of a train explosion and fire on the weekend. Authorities today allowed some residents to return home.

MONTREAL — Montreal, Maine and Atlantic and three of its employees are to be charged Tuesday with criminal negligence causing death in connection with the Lac-Mégantic derailment.

Forty-seven people died after a runaway MMA crude oil train derailed and exploded there on July 6, 2013. Millions of litres of crude oil spilled in the accident.

Thomas Harding, the lone engineer in charge of the train, was arrested Monday, along with MMA employees Jean Demaître and Richard Labrie, said Jean Pascal Boucher, a spokesperson for Quebec's director of criminal and penal prosecutions.

The three men detained by the Sûreté du Québec are to appear in Lac-Mégantic Tuesday afternoon to be formally charged, Boucher said.

According to a search warrant obtained by the SQ in July, Demaître was MMA's manager of train operations and Labrie was MMA's railway-traffic controller at the time of the accident.

The three men and the company each face 47 counts of criminal negligence causing death, said René Verret, also of the provincial prosecutor's office. The maximum sentence, if convicted, for that offence for a person is life in prison. Fines could also be imposed, Verret said. For a company, if convicted, there are no minimum or maximum fines, Verret said. A judge would decide the amount of the fine imposed.

MMA filed for bankruptcy protection in August. The company is in the process of being sold to Railroad Acquisition Holdings LLC, an affiliate of New York-based Fortress Investment Group. The sale is expected to be completed next week.

Verret said the police investigation is ongoing. He did not rule out the possibility that other charges could be laid in connection with the derailment. Harding's lawyer could not be reached for comment Monday night.

A fire broke out in the train's locomotive around 11:30 p.m. on July 5 when it was parked unattended near the town of Nantes, about 13 kilometres uphill from Lac-Mégantic. Local firefighters turned off the locomotive. While that is standard protocol, the move allowed pressure to the train's air brakes. to slowly bleed off. The Transportation Safety Board said an insufficient number of hand brakes had been set on the train.

Verret said his office had hoped to announce the charges earlier, but had many steps to go through first.

"We had to do so much today — we had to get warrants for three people and for the company and then we had to find these people," Verret said. "And of course we had to also inform the families in Lac-Mégantic and the person in charge there."

A news conference is also planned in Lac-Mégantic on Tuesday for the rebuilding of the Musi-Café, the establishment in the heart of town where many people perished.

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